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Bellamira (play)
''Bellamira: or, The Mistress'' is a comedy by Sir Charles Sedley, published in 1687, partly modelled on Terence's ''Eunuchus''. Stage history and reception Ascertaining the exact number of performances of ''Bellamira'' presents some problems. It is a fact that ''Bellamira'' was performed by the United Company in the Drury Lane Theatre on 12 May 1687. ''Bellamira'' may also have been performed in the Dorset Garden Theatre. However, as it was a standard play, without fancy scenery or machinery, the Drury Lane Theatre is the most likely place of performance. According to ''The London Stage'', 12 May, however, may not be regarded as the première. It is uncertain how many performances followed in the season of 1687/88, and there may have been a revival of the play in the season of 1690/91. At least two sources testify that ''Bellamira'' was not a failure in spite of obvious criticism from parts of the audience. The first testimony is that of Thomas Shadwell, who, in his ''Tenth Sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Sedley
Sir Charles Sedley, 5th Baronet (March 1639 – 20 August 1701), was an English noble, dramatist and politician. He was principally remembered for his wit and profligacy.. Life He was the son of Sir John Sedley, 2nd Baronet, of Aylesford in Kent, and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Henry Savile. The Sedleys (also sometimes spelt Sidley) had been prominent in Kent since at least 1337. Sedley's grandfather, William Sedley, was knighted in 1605 and created a baronet in 1611. He was the founder of the ''Sidleian Lectures of Natural Philosophy at Oxford''. Sedley was educated at Wadham College, Oxford, but left without taking a degree. There his tutor was the poet Walter Pope. The second surviving son of Sir John Sedley and Elizabeth, William, succeeded to the baronetcy in 1645. Charles Sedley inherited the title (5th baronet) in 1656 when his brother William died. By his first wife Lady Katherine Savage, daughter of John, 2nd Earl Rivers he had only one legitimate child, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terence
Publius Terentius Afer (; – ), better known in English as Terence (), was a Roman African playwright during the Roman Republic. His comedies were performed for the first time around 166–160 BC. Terentius Lucanus, a Roman senator, brought Terence to Rome as a slave, educated him and later on, impressed by his abilities, freed him. It is thought that Terence abruptly died, around the age of 25, likely in Greece or on his way back to Rome, due to shipwreck or disease. DEAD LINK He was supposedly on his way to explore and find inspiration for his comedies. His plays were heavily used to learn to speak and write in Latin during the Middle Ages and Renaissance Period, and in some instances were imitated by William Shakespeare. One famous quotation by Terence reads: "''Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto''", or "I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me." This appeared in his play ''Heauton Timorumenos''. Biography Terence's date of birth is disputed; Aelius ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eunuchus
''Eunuchus'' (''The Eunuch'') is a comedy written by the 2nd century BC Roman playwright Terence featuring a complex plot of rape and reconciliation. It was Terence's most successful play during his lifetime. Suetonius notes how the play was staged twice in a single day and won Terence 8,000 sesterces. The play is a loose translation of one written by Menander in Greek. The play was first performed at the Megalesian Games in Rome in the spring of 161 BC. It is the fourth of Terence's six plays. Characters *Laches - Athenian nobleman and father of Phaedria and Chaerea. In some manuscripts his name is listed as Demea. *Phaedria - A wealthy Athenian young man, in love with Thais. *Chaerea - Younger brother of Phaedria, in love with Pamphila. Dresses as the eunuch Dorus to gain access to her. *Antipho - Chaerea's friend who has been promised dinner. *Chremes - A young Athenian man and brother to Pamphila. *Thraso - A braggart soldier. *Gnatho - Thraso's "parasite," a man who agr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Company
The United Company was a London theatre company formed in 1682 with the merger of the King's Company and the Duke's Company. Both the Duke's and King's Companies suffered poor attendance during the turmoil of the Popish Plot period, 1678–81. When the King's Company fell into difficulties due to mismanagement, the Duke's Company joined with them to form the United Company in 1682, managed by the Duke's Company leaders. The United Company began performances in November 1682. The King's Company theatre, the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, was used mainly for plays, while the Duke's Dorset Garden Theatre was devoted to operas and spectaculars. The company began performing in November 1682 at Drury Lane. In February 1685 the theatre was closed by the death of Charles II, and reopened in January 1688 under the patronage of James II. The succession of William III and Mary II in 1689 brought no Royal patronage and a decline in interest in theatre.''The Cambridge History of Briti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Drury Lane. The building is the most recent in a line of four theatres which were built at the same location, the earliest of which dated back to 1663, making it the oldest theatre site in London still in use. According to the author Peter Thomson, for its first two centuries, Drury Lane could "reasonably have claimed to be London's leading theatre". For most of that time, it was one of a handful of patent theatres, granted monopoly rights to the production of "legitimate" drama in London (meaning spoken plays, rather than opera, dance, concerts, or plays with music). The first theatre on the site was built at the behest of Thomas Killigrew in the early 1660s, when theatres were allowed to reopen during the English Restoration. Initially ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dorset Garden Theatre
The Dorset Garden Theatre in London, built in 1671, was in its early years also known as the Duke of York's Theatre, or the Duke's Theatre. In 1685, King Charles II died and his brother, the Duke of York, was crowned as James II. When the Duke became King, the theatre became the Queen's Theatre in 1685, referring to James' second wife, Mary of Modena. The name remained when William III and Mary II came to the throne in 1689. It was the fourth home of the Duke's Company, one of the two patent theatre companies in Restoration London, and after 1682 continued to be used by the company's successor, the United Company. It was demolished in 1709. Background After years of being banned during the Interregnum, theatre performances were again permitted on the Restoration of Charles II with the grant of Letters Patent to two companies to perform "legitimate drama" in London. The Duke's Company was patronised by the Duke of York (later James II); the other patent theatre company, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Shadwell
Thomas Shadwell ( – 19 November 1692) was an English poet and playwright who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1689. Life Shadwell was born at either Bromehill Farm, Weeting-with-Broomhill or Santon House, Lynford, Norfolk, and educated at Bury St Edmunds School, and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, which he entered in 1656. He left the university without a degree, and joined the Middle Temple. At the Whig triumph in 1688, he superseded John Dryden as poet laureate and historiographer royal. He died at Chelsea on 19 November 1692.Thomas Shadwell He was buried in , but his tomb was destroyed by wartime bombing. A memorial to him with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Whig Party
The Whigs were a political faction and then a political party in the Parliaments of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom. Between the 1680s and the 1850s, the Whigs contested power with their rivals, the Tories. The Whigs merged into the new Liberal Party with the Peelites and Radicals in the 1850s, and other Whigs left the Liberal Party in 1886 to form the Liberal Unionist Party, which merged into the Liberals' rival, the modern day Conservative Party, in 1912. The Whigs began as a political faction that opposed absolute monarchy and Catholic Emancipation, supporting constitutional monarchism with a parliamentary system. They played a central role in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and were the standing enemies of the Roman Catholic Stuart kings and pretenders. The period known as the Whig Supremacy (1714–1760) was enabled by the Hanoverian succession of George I in 1714 and the failure of the Jacobite rising of 1715 by Tory rebels. The Whigs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Etherege
Sir George Etherege (c. 1636, Maidenhead, Berkshire – c. 10 May 1692, Paris) was an English dramatist. He wrote the plays '' The Comical Revenge or, Love in a Tub'' in 1664, ''She Would If She Could'' in 1668, and '' The Man of Mode or, Sir Fopling Flutter'' in 1676. Biography Early life George Etherege was born in Maidenhead, Berkshire, in about 1636, to George Etherege and Mary Powney, as the eldest of their six children. Educated at Lord Williams's School, where a school building was later named after him, he was rumoured to have attended the University of Cambridge,William Oldys, ''Biographia Britannica.'' Vol. III, 1750. p. 1841. although John Dennis states that to his certain knowledge Etherege understood neither Greek nor Latin, thus raising doubts that he could have been there. Etherege served as an apprentice to a lawyer and later studied law at Clement's Inn, London, one of the Inns of Chancery. He probably travelled abroad to France with his father, who staye ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ratisbon
Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the fourth-largest city in the State of Bavaria after Munich, Nuremberg and Augsburg. From its foundation as an imperial Roman river fort, the city has been the political, economic and cultural centre of the surrounding region; it is still known in the Romance languages by a cognate of its Latin name of "Ratisbona" (the version "Ratisbon" was long current in English). Later, under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire, it housed the Perpetual Diet of Regensburg. The medieval centre of the city was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2006 because of its well-preserved architecture and the city's historical importance for assemblies during the Holy Roman Empire. In 2014, Regensburg was among the top sights and travel attractions in Germany. Histor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rake (character)
In a historical context, a rake (short for rakehell, analogous to "hellraiser") was a man who was habituated to immoral conduct, particularly womanizing. Often, a rake was also prodigal, wasting his (usually inherited) fortune on gambling, wine, women, and song, and incurring lavish debts in the process. Cad is a closely related term. Comparable terms are " libertine" and "debauchee". The Restoration rake was a carefree, witty, sexually irresistible aristocrat whose heyday was during the English Restoration period (1660–1688) at the court of King Charles II. They were typified by the "Merry Gang" of courtiers, who included as prominent members the John Wilmot; George Villiers; and Charles Sackville, who combined riotous living with intellectual pursuits and patronage of the arts. At this time the rake featured as a stock character in Restoration comedy. After the reign of Charles II, and especially after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the cultural perception of the r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gentlewoman
A gentlewoman (from the Latin ''gentilis'', belonging to a ''gens'', and English 'woman') in the original and strict sense is a woman of good family, analogous to the Latin ''generosus'' and ''generosa''. The closely related English word "gentry" derives from the Old French ''genterise'', ''gentelise'', with much of the meaning of the French ''noblesse'' and the German ''Adel'', but without the strict technical requirements of those traditions, such as quarters of nobility. By association with gentleman, the word can refer to: *A woman of gentle birth or high social position; *A woman attending a great lady (as, for example, the character in William Shakespeare's ''Macbeth'' called only 'Gentlewoman', who attends Lady Macbeth). This might be a court appointment as the female equivalent to a valet de chambre. *A woman with good manners and high standards of behaviour. At court From the time of Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I, the title ''Gentlewoman of Her Majesty's Bedcha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
